1. Field of the Invention
The invention described herein relates to information processing and to the security of network information systems in particular.
2. Related Art
One of the problems common to information security systems is minimization of a security boundary. A security boundary can be viewed as a conceptual demarcation of information and logic that must not be compromised. Logic within the security boundary performs security-related actions, such as encryption, decryption, authentication, and any other processes that require the handling of sensitive information. Preferably, such a boundary is minimized. This allows a designer to treat much of the surrounding system as untrusted. A complementary design goal is to avoid overloading trusted processing assets. Preferably, as much processing as possible should be left to untrusted logic. This permits the trusted logic to concentrate on security related operations. Moreover, such processes can be computationally intensive, e.g., the mathematical processing associated with public key cryptography. Finally, while a security boundary must be well defined, it is also desirable to define this boundary in a flexible manner. This allows a designer to add logic to the portion of a design that is inside a security boundary. This increases the designer's options, and allows the addition or deletion of sensitive logic after a system is fielded.
What is needed, therefore, is a security architecture that provides for a minimal security boundary and allows as much processing as possible to be performed outside the boundary. This would allow for secure, authenticated transmission of both traffic and cryptographic keys using minimal logic. Moreover, such a system would allow the easy and secure configuration or reconfiguration of logic within the security boundary.